Justice News

Deborah Williamson Imprisoned For Embezzling From Grocery Employer

The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Deborah Williamson, 37, a former resident of Wheelock who now lives in Florida, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Brattleboro to four months of imprisonment following her guilty plea to a charge of mail fraud. U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha also ordered that Williamson serve three years of supervised release following completion of her prison term and pay restitution in the amount of $69,905. As a condition of supervised release, the court ordered Williamson to serve an additional four months of home confinement. The court directed Williamson to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on February 24 to begin serving her sentence.

On March 20, 2014, a federal grand jury in Burlington returned a one-count indictment accusing Williamson of wire fraud. According to the indictment, Williamson was employed as the manager of White Market, a grocery store in Lyndonville. Her duties included regularly cashing checks drawn against the company's bank account to obtain one dollar bills and coins for the cash registers. The indictment alleges that between 2010 and 2012, Williamson stole nearly $70,000 in cash from the store's safe. She allegedly tried to cover up these thefts by not recording, or underreporting, the amount of cash and coins received from the bank in the store's computerized accounting system.

This case was investigated by the Lyndonville Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Williamson is represented by Brooks McArthur. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.